Aldo Rossi

Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) was born in Milan, where he graduated in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. In 1970 he began teaching at several American universities, including Harvard and Yale. He held a number of prestigious positions, including director of the architecture section of the Venice Biennale in 1983, while dividing his architecture practice between public and private construction.

To mention just a few of his projects, the residential building in the Gallaratese district of Milan, the Cemetery of San Cataldo in Modena, the renovation of the Teatro Carlo Felice opera house in Genoa, the city block between Kochstrasse and Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, the reconstruction of Teatro La Fenice opera house in Venice, and the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht. Architect and theorist, named Accademico di San Luca in 1979, winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize 1990 and the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture in 1991, Aldo Rossi is also famous for his work as a designer – collaborating with Alessi, Artemide, Longoni, Molteni and UniFor – and as a painter and graphic artist, two fields closely tied to his design work.

Álvaro Siza

Álvaro Joaquim Melo Siza Vieira (1933) was born in Matosinhos, Portugal. He studied at the School of Architecture in Porto, where, towards the end of the 1950s, he opened his own firm. A visiting professor at prestigious international universities from the mid-1960s, he later devoted his teaching activities entirely to the faculty of architecture at the University of Porto.

Among the numerous buildings he has designed are the Portugal Pavilion for Expo ‘98 in Lisbon, together with Eduardo Souto de Moura, the residential complex Bonjour Tristesse in Berlin, and renovation projects in the Chiado quarter of Lisbon. He has received numerous prizes and honors, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1992, the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2009, and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement on occasion of the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2012. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects, the American Institute of Architects, the Académie d'Architecture de France, the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Andrée Putman

Andrée Putman (1925-2013) was born in Paris, where she began a career in music. She first made contact with the design world while working at the magazines Elle and L'OEIL, and at advertising agencies. In 1978 she founded the interior design firm Écart, soon earning a name for herself for her refined harmony of forms, which became a point of reference for elegant shops and luxury hotels around the world, and for bringing affordable art and design to the Prisunic supermarket chain. In the 1980s she created the world's first boutique hotel: Morgans in New York. These achievements led her along several eclectic paths: from the Museum of the Fine Arts in Rouen to the CAPC in Bordeaux, the Guggenheim, and the Universal Exposition of Seville. She designed the interiors of the Concorde for Air France, Parete AP for UniFor, and the set for the film The Pillow Book by P. Greenaway. Her most recent works include the restaurants Lô Sushi in Paris and Bastide in Los Angeles, an important flatware collection for Christofle, and her own fragrance, Préparation Parfumée.

Angelo Mangiarotti

Angelo Mangiarotti (1921-2012) was born in Milan, where he graduated in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. During the early 1950s he worked in the United States, where he met Frank Lloyd Wright, Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Konrad Wachsmann. Architect, designer and urban planner, he earned international fame not only in the field of industrial design, but also for his architecture with its focus on infrastructure, planning and structural engineering.

He earned numerous awards, both in the design industries, for his collaboration with many important Italian furniture companies, as well as in the construction industries, both in Italy and internationally. One of the founders of ADI, the Italian association for industrial design, Mangiarotti viewed architecture as a practical, rigorous and functional art; he considered industrial design an expression of artisan craftwork that must never be at the expense of function. For UniFor, Mangiarotti designed the company headquarters in Turate (Special Mention, in/Arch Awards 1989).

Fernando Urquijo

Fernando Urquijo is an Argentine architect who graduated from the University of Buenos Aires, where he became a part of the teaching staff in 1964. Fernando Urquijo considers the architects Elliot Noyes and Gino Valle his mentors, as they had a decisive influence on his career. Under the direction of Elliot Noyes, the Dean of the Harvard Gradual School of Design, he became the head of the architecture program for IBM Europe, and participated in numerous projects, supervising such architects as Norman Foster, Jorgen Bö and Renzo Piano. In this period he collaborated on an important research project regarding the behavior of the employees of large offices in Europe. In 1985, together with Gino Valle and Giorgio Macola, he opened a firm in Paris for office and chair design for large-scale clients such as the Société Générale, Thompson and Allianz.

He has developed lasting and fruitful relationships with many different companies, including UniFor, for whom he has designed several office furnishing systems. He has received numerous international prizes and honors. Presently, he divides his time working in both Paris and his native city, Buenos Aires.

Foster + Partners

Foster+Partners

Foster+Partners is one of the most innovative architecture and integrated design practices in the world. Over the past four decades the practice has pioneered a sustainable approach to architecture through a strikingly wide range of work, from urban masterplans, public infrastructure, airports, civic and cultural buildings, offices and workplaces to private houses and product design. Based in London, with offices worldwide, the practice has an international reputation, with buildings in six continents.

Jean Nouvel Design

Jean Nouvel (1945) was born in Fumel, France. After graduation, working as an assistant to the architect Claude Parent and inspired by the urbanist and essayist Paul Virilio, he began his first works of architecture. He was a founding member of the movement “Mars 1976”, and later founded the French Architecture Union.

Nouvel's first approach to industrial design was born of a need to create objects for his architecture, for instance the table Less, manufactured by UniFor for the headquarters of the Fondation Cartier. Among his innumerable works: Institut du monde arabe in Paris; together with Fumihiko Maki and Norman Foster, three of the five towers for the Ground Zero reconstruction project in New York; the Torre Agbar in Barcelona; the Mariinski Theatre in St. Petersburg. He has received many prestigious prizes, French and international, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2000, the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2001, and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2008.

Luca Meda

Luca Meda (1936-1998) was born in Chiavari, Italy, but grew up and studied in Milan, where he graduated from the Brera Art Academy. He continued his studies in Germany at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, one of the world's most prestigious design institutes. A crucial moment in his career was his encounter with Aldo Rossi, with whom he opened a studio and participated in numerous competitions, for instance for the Museo di Storia Contemporanea in Milan. Architect but also designer, he skillfully combined these two spheres with creative verve in projects ranging from urban design to furnishings conceived to explore new functionalities. From the end of the 1970s, he devoted himself to the design of objects manufactured in series. He worked mainly for the companies of the Molteni Group, developing furnishings and partition systems that have become design icons, for instance the bookcase Piroscafo with Aldo Rossi, the chairs Zim and Ho, the armchair Vivette, and the sofa Primafila, for Molteni&C; the kitchens Banco and Nuvola for Dada; the fitted wall systems Progetto 25 and P4 and the Misura furnishing systems, for UniFor.

Luciano Pagani, Angelo Perversi

Luciano Pagani and Angelo Perversi (1950) graduated in architecture at the Politecnico di Milano. They opened a practice in the mid-1980s, occupying themselves with architecture, industrial design, lighting design and art direction. Among their most important architectural works are the headquarters of the newspaper La Repubblica in Rome, the headquarters of the newspaper Corriere della Sera in Milan and Rome, and the headquarters of the newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport.

The architects' attention to the relationship between buildings and illumination led to the development of numerous lighting projects for art galleries, museums and public buildings. In terms of product design, their studio has worked with a number of prominent international designers and companies such as Flos, Joint, FontanaArte, Zanotta, UniFor and Poltrona Frau. They have received two Compasso d’Oro awards: in 1987 for their Hook System modular bookcases, for Joint; in 1998 for their Flipper office tables and containers, for UniFor.

Michele De Lucchi

Michele De Lucchi (1951) was born in Ferrara, Italy. After graduating in
architecture in Florence, over the course of the 1980s he consolidated
his working relationship with Olivetti, having begun in 1979 thanks to
Ettore Sottsass, who had entrusted him with the design of the office
furnishing systems for the Synthesis division. In the same period, he
began designing lamps and furnishing elements for the most prominent
Italian and European companies. Making use of a design approach – global
and transversal – that treats architecture as an integrated system, he
lends his skills to product design, furnishings and graphics. Production
of Tolomeo, his table lamp for Artemide, began in 1987, resulting in
his first Compasso d'Oro ADI award. He won a second Compasso d'Oro for
his Artjet 10 printer for Olivetti. In recent years he has developed
numerous architectural projects for public and private clients and has
curated many important exhibitions. He designs objects and small
furnishings under the name Produzione Privata, collaborating with
various artisans for their manufacture.

Pierluigi Cerri

Pierluigi Cerri graduated from the Politecnico di Milano and is a founding partner of Gregotti Associati, with whom he has won numerous architectural competitions. In 1976 he was responsible for the visual identity of the Venice Biennale; he developed the visual identities of the Kunst und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn and Palazzo Grassi in Venice; he was editor of the periodicals Casabella and Review; he designed book series for the major publishing houses in Italy; he designed various exhibitions at the most important museums in Europe, Japan and the United States, as well as the Shanghai Italian Center (former Expo 2012 Italian Pavilion).

He developed the corporate identity of a number of organizations, including the Lingotto cultural centre in Turin, UniFor, Pitti Immagine, Prada and Cosmit. He has created objects and designed exhibitions for UniFor, B&B Italia, Poltrona Frau, Fontana Arte, Arflex, Molteni&C, Fusital, and Desalto. Among the honors he has received are three Compasso d’Oro awards: for image design for UniFor in 1995, for his Titano table for Poltrona Frau in 2001, and for the Naòs System office furniture and tables for UniFor in 2004. In 1998, together with Alessandro Colombo, he founded Studio Cerri & Associati.

Renzo Piano

Renzo Piano (1937) was born in Genoa. While studying at the Politecnico di Milano, he worked at the architecture firm of Franco Albini. After graduating, he began experimenting with lightweight, mobile and temporary structures, making numerous trips to Great Britain and the United States for the purpose of research and investigation. In 1971 he opened the firm “Piano & Rogers” in collaboration with Richard Rogers. They won the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where Piano then made his home.

Later he worked with the engineer Peter Rice, creating the “Atelier Piano & Rice”. In 1981 he opened the “Renzo Piano Building Workshop”, with offices in Paris, Genoa and New York. The structural rigor and lightness of form that characterize his projects can also be found in his design work, including his Parete RP partition system for UniFor. He has been awarded numerous prizes over the years, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1998. In September 2013, Renzo Piano was appointed Senator for Life by President Giorgio Napolitano.

Studio Cerri & Associati

In 1998, Pierluigi Cerri and Alessandro Colombo launched Studio Cerri & Associati, working in the fields of architecture, industrial design, exhibition design, graphic arts, interior design and naval design. Their work includes: in Milan, the renovation of Palazzo Marino alla Scala, the headquarters of E. Biscom, the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro and the Triennale Bovisa; the new Halls for the Fiera di Bologna; the restoration of Palazzo Rosso in Genoa; the UniFor locations in Milan, London, Sydney, Melbourne and Toronto; the Domus del Chirurgo museum in Rimini; the Creative Center in Casalgrande; the project for the Triennale sites in Shanghai and New York for the restoration of Villa Reale in Monza.

They have designed numerous museum exhibitions, trade fair exhibitions and boutique shops in Europe, Japan and the United States. They designed the corporate identity for Prada America’s Cup, GeNova 04 European Capital of Culture, MART in Rovereto, City Life and Valextra, as well as image design for iGuzzini, UniFor, Dada, Artemide, the Triennale di Milano, Mito Settembre Musica, Sea Aeroporti and the Milan Furniture Show. They designed the interiors and the livery of the new NTV high-speed trains, designed and co-ordinated the graphics for Nuovo Evangeliario Ambrosiano and in 2012/13, the new exhibitions for the Shanghai Italian Center. Awards: Compasso d’Oro in 2001 (Titano for Poltrona Frau) and in 2004 (Naòs System for UniFor, which also received the Gold Product Design award at the Industrie Forum Design 2003 in Hannover); International Super Yacht Design Award; in 2006 awarded the In/Arch-Ance National prize for the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro in Milan.

Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani

Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani (Rome, 1951), architect and architectural theorist, studied architecture in Rome and in Stuttgart, where he completed his doctorate degree. Professor of architecture at Harvard, Frankfurt am Main and Pamplona, since 1994 he has taught History of Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich; since 2010 he has been the director of the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture.

Among the most important projects by his architecture firm in Milan: Office building in Block 109, Berlin (1991-1996); the square at the entrance to the Audi factory in Ingolstadt (1999-2000); urban planning of the Novartis Campus in St. Johann, Basel, (2001); master plan for the Novartis Campus, East Hanover (2002); Mergellina metro station, Naples (2004-2011); restyling of the Danube river banks, Regensburg (2004); master plan of the Richti area, Wallisellen, Switzerland, including the planning of the open spaces and of a residential block with shops (2007). He has published a large number of articles and shown his work in numerous exhibitions.